Allow Afghanistan to get on with things sans constant interference: UK envoy

The international community has been hand-holding Afghanistan long enough, and should allow the country to get on with its running without the West's constant interference, the British ambassador to Kabul has said.

Sir Richard Stagg said it was also clear that the Taliban had grown tired of camping across the border in Pakistan and had accepted the need to be involved in peace and reconciliation talks over the next two years if they were to have any hope of sharing power.

"We need to allow [the Afghans] to get on with things more. The international community has been a bit omnipresent in the last decade and we need to move to a different business model in which we are there to provide help and guidance but not there to try to take decisions for them," Stagg told The Guardian.